(42) And Joseph recognized them, but they did not recognize him, and he spake unto them and questioned them, and he said unto them : " Are ye not spies, and have ye not come to explore the approaches of the land ? ' And he put them in ward.

(39) Jesus said, "The Pharisees and the scribes have taken the keys of Knowledge and hidden them. They themselves have not entered, nor have they allowed to enter those who wish to. You, however, be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves."

(44) Mary said to him: "Holy Lord, where did your disciples come from, and where are they going, and (what) should they do here?"

Look, now I shall ascend to the perfect realm. I have finished everything for you in your hearing. I have told you everything for you to record and communicate secretly to your spiritual friends. This is the mystery of the unshakable race. The savior communicated this to John for him to record and safeguard. He said to him, Cursed be anyone who will trade these things for a gift, for food, drink, clothes, or anything like this. These things were communicated to John in a mystery, and at once the savior disappeared. Then John went to the other students and reported what the savior had told him. Jesus the anointed Amen

(43) And he ran after them and said unto them according to these words.

(19) Matthew said to him: "Lord, Savior, how was Man revealed?"

The secret sayings that the savior spoke to Judas Thomas which I, even I, Mathaias, wrote down, while I was walking, listening to them speak with one another.

(81) And so during the forty days after his resurrection he did not always walk visibly among the disciples, but invisibly, according to his heavenly and angelical property; though when he would speak or talk with his disciples, then he shewed or presented himself in a comprehensible or palpable manner and form, that thereby he might speak natural words with them: for the corruption cannot comprehend or apprehend the divine (words or things).

(10) What were his Apostles? Poor, despised, illiterate fishermen. And what were they that believed their preaching? The poorer and meaner sort of the people. The High Priests and Scribes were the executioners of Christ, [they] who cried out, Crucify him, crucify him.

(4) He questioned them about the Savior: Did He really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did He prefer her to us?

Jesus became a guide, quiet and at leisure. In the middle of a school he came and spoke the word, as a teacher. Those who were wise in their own estimation came to put him to the test. But he discredited them as empty-headed people. They hated him because they really were not wise. After all these came also the little children, those who possess the knowledge of the father. When they became strong they were taught the aspects of the father’s face. They came to know and they were known. They were glorified and they gave glory.

(1) As he therefore thus prepared his disciples for erudition, he did not immediately receive into the number of his associates those who came to him for that purpose, till he had made trial of, and judiciously examined them. Hence in the first place he inquired after what manner they associated with their parents, and the rest of their relatives. In the next place he surveyed their unseasonable laughter, their silence, and their speaking when it was not proper; and farther still, what their desires were, with whom they associated, how they conversed with them, in what they especially employed their leisure time in the day, and what were the subjects of their joy and grief. He likewise surveyed, their form, their mode of walking, and the whole motion of their body.

Physiognomically also considering the natural indications of their frame, he made them to be manifest signs of the unapparent manners of the soul. When, therefore, he had thus made trial of some one, he suffered him to be neglected for three years, in the mean time observing how he was disposed with respect to stability, and a true love of learning, and if he was sufficiently prepared with reference to glory, so as to despise [popular] honor. After this, he ordered those who came to him to observe a quinquennial silence, in order that he might experimentally know how they were affected as to continence of speech, the subjugation of the tongue being the most difficult of all victories; as those have unfolded to us who instituted the mysteries.

During this [probationary] time, however, the property of each was disposed of in common, and was committed to the care of those appointed for this purpose, who were called politicians, economizers, and legislators. And with respect to these probationers, those who appeared to be worthy to participate of his dogmas, from the judgment he had formed of them from their life and the modesty of their behaviour, after the quinquennial silence, then became Esoterics , and both heard and saw Pythagoras himself within the veil. For prior to this they participated of his words through the hearing alone, beyond the veil, without at all seeing him, giving for a long time a specimen of their peculiar manners. But if they were rejected they received the double of the wealth which they brought, and a tomb was raised to them as if they were dead by the homacoï ; for thus all the disciples of the man were called.

And if they happened to meet with them afterwards, they behaved to them as if they were other persons, but said that they were dead, whom they had modelled by education, in the expectation that they would become truly good men by the disciplines they would learn. They also were of opinion that those who were more slow in the acquisition of knowledge, were badly organized, and, as I may say, imperfect and barren. If, however, after Pythagoras had physiognomically considered their form, their mode of walking, and every other motion, and the state of their body, and he had conceived good hope respecting them; after likewise the quinquennial silence, and the orgies and initiations from so many disciplines, together with the ablutions of the soul, and so many and such great purifications produced from such various theorems, through which the sagacity and sanctity of the soul is perfectly ingenerated; if, after all this, some one was found to be still sluggish and of a dull intellect, they raised to such a one in the school a certain pillar and monument, (as they are said to have done to Perialus the Thurian, and Cylon the prince of the Sybarites, who were rejected by them) expelled him from the Homacoïon or auditory, loading him with a great quantity of silver and gold.

For these were deposited by them in common, and were committed to the care of certain persons adapted to this purpose, and who were called Economics, from the office which they bore. And if afterwards they happened to meet with such a one, they conceived him to be any other person, than him who according to them was dead. Hence also Lysis, blaming a certain person named Hipparchus, because he had communicated the doctrines of the Pythagoreans to the profane, and to those who acceded to them without disciplines and theory, says as follows:

(59) And you see clearly, that the wicked Pharisees and Scribes put these Things upon him; for these Things did not happen to him for nothing, or without Cause; for it was of Necessity to be so; for the Pharisees, Scribes, and Rulers, had put that in his Dish for him, which he must eat. Or shall we be silent? We must tell it, though it should cost us our Life.

(40) And the Lord gave Joseph favour and mercy in the eyes of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh said unto his servants : " We shall not find such a wise and discreet man as this man, for the spirit of the Lord is with him."

(12) And his activities had to do with the Watchers, and his days were with the holy ones.

(7) In an effort to solve some of the problems arising from any attempt to chronicle accurately the life of Jesus, it has been suggested that there may have lived in Syria at that time two or more religious teachers bearing the name Jesus, Jehoshua or Joshua, and that the lives of these men may have been confused in the Gospel stories. In his Secret Sects of Syria and the Lebanon, Bernard H. Springett, a Masonic author, quotes from an early book, the name of which he was not at liberty to disclose because of its connection with the ritual of a sect. The last part of his quotation is germane to the subject at hand:

(2) When then Jesus had spoken these words unto his disciples, he said unto them: "Who hath ears to hear, let him hear; and let him whose spirit seetheth up in him, come forward and speak the solution of the thought of the fifth repentance of Pistis Sophia." It came to pass then, when Jesus had heard Philip, that he said unto him: "Hearken, Philip, blessed one, that I may discourse with thee; for it is thou and Thomas and Matthew on whom it is enjoined by the First Mystery to write all the discourses which I shall speak and [all which I shall] do, and all things which ye shall see. But as for thee, the number of the discourses which thou hast to write, is so far not yet completed. When it is then completed, thou art to come forward and proclaim what pleaseth thee. Now, therefore, ye three have to write down all the discourses which I shall speak and [all things which I shall] do and which ye shall see, in order that ye may bear witness to all things of the kingdom of heaven."

(1) And when the disciples had heard this, they fell down, adored him and said: "Help us now, Lord, and have mercy upon us, in order that we may be preserved from these wicked chastisements which are prepared for the sinners. Woe unto them, woe unto the children of men! For they grope as the blind in the darkness and see not. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, in this great blindness in which we are. And have mercy upon the whole race of men; for they have lain in wait for their souls, as lions for their prey, making it [ sc. the prey] ready as food for their [ sc. the rulers'] chastisements because of the forgetfulness and unknowing which is in them. Have mercy then upon us, our Lord, our Saviour, have mercy upon us and save us in this great stupefaction."

(1) Mary started forward again, stepped into the midst, placed herself by Philip and said unto Jesus: "My Lord, my in-dweller of light hath ears, and I am ready to hear with my power, and I have understood the word which thou hast spoken. Now, therefore, my Lord, hearken that I may discourse in openness, thou who hast said unto us: 'Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.' "Concerning the word which thou hast spoken unto Philip: 'It is thou and Thomas and Matthew on whom it hath been enjoined--to you three by the First Mystery, to write all the discourses of the kingdom of the Light and thereto to bear witness '; hearken, therefore, that I may proclaim the solution of this word. This is what thy light-power prophesied aforetime through Moses: 'By two or three witnesses shall every matter be established.' The three witnesses are Philip and Thomas and Matthew."

(82) Also it sufficiently appeareth that his body was of an angelical kind, in that he went to his disciples through closed doors [John xx. 19.].